The Baffling Bravo Brothers
by SomeStupidBaguette
Summary: Whether by divine intervention or complete accident, these two brothers find themselves transformed into Pokémon in another world. Journey with Daniel and Mathew Bravo as they try not to get killed by the magical creatures of their childhood. It's, like, the opposite of your childhood getting ruined. Rated M for excessive foul language and adult humor.
1. Some Kind Of Fanfiction

Pain. Right now, all Daniel Bravo could think and feel was either excruciating pain or extreme numbness. He moaned and groaned as he tried to look at his surroundings that are slowly become clear. He saw trees. A lot of trees. Holy shit those are a lot of trees. He looked at what he thought was the sky only to see more trees. He swore that he could see trees growing on trees. _Great, I'm slowly dying in a forest,_ he thought as he tried to find anything that wasn't a tree.

"Mom!" He heard a voice, but it was too far to make out. "Dad!" The voice was coming closer; the extreme panic in the voice sounded familiar. "Danny!" He knew who's voice it was! Now, all he had to do was call him out. Through all the pain and exhaustion, he managed scream out…

"MATHEEEEWWWW!" Daniel could here birds flapping away from the sheer power of his scream. _Heh, still got it,_ he thought as he heard footsteps getting closer. He turned his head to see a familiar face and something that wasn't a tree. While one of those things were true, he did not see his brother's face. He, instead, saw a face of a monkey thick blue eyebrows. He saw a Monferno. The Monferno, as well, didn't seem very happy to see Daniel at first, but as they looked into each other's eyes, they knew.

"Danny?" Mathew Bravo asked.

"Mathew?" Daniel replied. "Did you, um, get a haircut?"

Mathew snickered. "You also seemed to have done something to yourself. I almost didn't recognize you. Almost."

"Very funny. Now, can you help me up? I can feel the upper half of my body, but I still can't feel my legs."

"Well that makes sense," said Mathew, who was now holding back laughter. "You don't have any."

"What!?" Daniel tried to move his legs, but he felt something… _else_ move. "Mathew? What Pokémon am I?" He asked on edge.

"I don't really know but…" He began, still holding back laughter but this time he's getting bad at it, "I didn't expect your spirit Pokémon to be a… ballerina seal!" Unable to contain it anymore, he started laughing at full force now.

Daniel, upon hearing this, quickly sat up to check his body. 2 flippers, a tail, and ruffles in between; he knew exactly what Pokémon he turned out to be. He turned to his brother to say something, only to see that he is still laughing. Unamused, the newfound Brionne said, "Go ahead, keep laughing. Distract yourself from the anxiety attack you're about to get when I tell you that _we are in another world inhabited by Pokémon with no way to get back to our own world."_

Hearing his brother's claim, the once-laughing Monferno quickly became extremely anxious as he looked around his surroundings. He saw trees. A lot of trees. Holy shit those are a lot of trees. He looked at what he thought was the sky only to see more trees. He swore that he could see trees growing on trees. With the realization slowly and painfully coming to him, he knew there was only one thing to do. He screamed.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

 _Some Stupid Baguette Presents_

 _The Baffling Bravo Brothers_

 _Chapter 1: Some Kind of Fanfiction_

It was a warm summer day in West Virginia. Sun was shining and there was nary a cloud in sight; a good day to go to the local fair. The Bravo family was preparing to do just that, I nice family trip to have some fun during their summer break.

Elizabeth Bravo was standing at the doorway, waiting for everyone to get ready, when her son, Daniel Bravo, walked by. While Elizabeth had on a nice dress, makeup, and even some high heels, her son just had a black Elder Scrolls t-shirt and some jeans. Elizabeth wasn't too happy about this. "Daniel, you're going dressed like that?" She says.

Daniel looked at his attire, and then his mother's attire, and then said, "I'm to have fun, not to impress people, Mom."

"Well, it's no reason to look like you picked out two random pieces of clothing." Daniel shrugged as that is exactly what he did. "Come with me," Elizabeth said as he dragged Daniel to his room. She looked though his clothes and pulled out a red blazer and handed it to Daniel. "Put it on." Daniel, slightly annoyed but going along with it, put it on. Elizabeth smiled at how nice her son looked. "See? You look nice, clean, and people can still tell that like that fantasy… magic game."

"Yeah, okay, Mom. But I'm not buttoning this."

"You don't have to. That's the best part." The proud mother looked down and saw the bulge in her son's pockets. "What are you bringing with you, Daniel?"

Daniel checked his pockets and said, "My phone, wallet, and DS." Elizabeth seemed a little bothered when he said "DS".

"Why are you bringing that? It is supposed to be family time."

"It's for the car trips."

"But Danny…" Elizabeth sighed and sat on Daniel's bed, which wasn't made. "Sometimes I worry that you're getting a little disconnected from us. Remember when you were younger, and you would not leave me alone? I miss those days."

"Yeah, but now I'm twenty, in college and having to do a bunch bull- "

"Daniel!" His mother warned.

"…poop. We barely see each other for three quarters of a year. We can't go back to those days anymore."

"I know that. It's just even more reason why this trip so important for us. To reconnect."

Daniel sighed. He knew his mother was right. "Right. Don't worry the DS is just for the car trips. Once we get to the fair it's no game and only family… except for the games they have at the fair. Okay?"

Elizabeth sighed understandingly. "Okay. Give me a hug." Not being allowed an answer, Daniel was pulled into his mother's arms. Daniel, understanding his mother's worries and emotions, hugged her back. After several seconds, the loving mother released her son. "Okay, now go tell your brother and father to hurry up."

"Alright." Daniel left the room to go to his brother's room, which was just next door. He knocked and the door and yelled, "Hurry up, Mathew! Mother's waiting!"

Mathew, in his room, was with his father, Johnson Bravo, getting ready for the upcoming trip. They both had on a suit and tie, dress pants, and dress shoes; Mathew's outfit, however, was much lighter than his father's. After combing his son's hair, Johnson made sure he had everything he needed. "Cell phone? Charged?"

"Yep."

"Wallet with ID?"

"Yep."

"If Daniel gets lost and you can't contact him, what do you do?"

"Report to a nearby security guard."

"And you see him get kidnapped?"

"Call 911."

"And if hurts himself."

Mathew, tired of his father pestering him about Daniel's safety, said, "Okay, Dad, he can take care of himself."

"You're his older brother- "

"By only two years! Dad you can't expect me to keep him safe all the time."

"Even if you can't, it doesn't mean you can just leave him alone. You two are brothers, it's different from a father-son or mother-son relationship. It means you two support each other, protect each other. I've never seen a pair of brothers as inseparable as you two."

"That doesn't mean I wanted to be with him all the time."

"Even if you aren't with him all the time, you two will still be together. Even when you two are married only see each other once a year, you two will still be together. That's not just brothers anymore, that's what family is. Together, always. Got it?"

"Yes, Dad."

"All right. Let's not keep your mother waiting, let's go."

The father and son went out of the room to meet Daniel and Elizabeth at the front porch. The family all went outside and into their car; Johnson was on the driver's seat, Elizabeth on shotgun, and the brothers rode on the back. With the car started, Johnson drove the car out of the driveway, out of the neighborhood and into the highway.

Daniel, wanting to start a conversation with his brother, asked, "Hey, Mathew. Have you seen the trailer for DC's Titans yet?"

"Oh god," Mathew groaned in disgust.

"Fuck Batman," Daniel said in a gritty voice, but quiet enough so that only Mathew could hear it.

"Why do they have to do it, like, ultra-edgy?"

"At least they're _trying_ something, unlike another dumb adaptation."

"True," Mathew agreed, "Are you excited for the fair?"

"Not especially, but this is for our mother, so, at least look excited."

"Right. Hey, at the fair, do you think they're going to have-"

"LOOK OUT!" screamed Elizabeth, pointing at the car that was driving full speed at them. But it was too late; the cars crashed. The Bravo family's car flew into a tree, almost cause much damage to both the car and the family inside. The engine was now on fire, the windows were shatter, and the whole family was unconscious except Mathew. Mathew looked at his brother, he was bleeding and unconscious, or worse. He turned to look at his parents in the front of the car, but they were gone. He tried to look outside to find them, but he was slowly losing whatever consciousness he had left. And then, Mathew blacked out.

. . .

"Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod," was Mathew's current mantra as he continually paced left to right in the forest. "Whatdoesthismean? Whyarewehere? Whereareourparents? Howdowegetback?"

"Could you stop having an existential crisis?" asked Daniel. When Mathew turned his head expecting his very human brother, but when he saw a slightly annoyed Brionne in place of him, he went back to his mantra. "Okay, it was funny the first few minutes, but now it's just annoying. So, please, STOP IT!"

"I'm sorry, but any normal person would freak out right about now!"

Hearing this made Daniel more annoyed. "First of all, you are no longer a 'normal person'. Secondly, you were never a 'normal person'. And lastly, freaking out right now is an inefficient use of time and energy, so STOP IT!"

Mathew tried to force himself to calm down, which worked a little, but a thought came to his head. So, he asked Daniel, "Why are you so calm about this?"

Daniel thought about his answer and said, "Well, one of us had to be," Mathew gave an accepting shrug as Daniel continued, "And, technically, we both been through this before."

"What are y-" Mathew started but gave his brother's response a but more thought. "You don't mean Pokémon: Mystery Dungeon, do you?"

"Yeah that's what I mean."

"That's just a video game."

"Well, now we're in one."

"We are!?" This made the already freaked out Mathew freak out a bit more.

"W-Well… maybe."

"'Maybe'?"

"It IS kinda up in the air whether or not we are actually in a video game, but I think we can still follow the same rules of those stuck-in-a-video-game shows and movies we've seen."

Mathew was finally calm enough to start following his brother's logic. "Which means to get back to our world… we need to 'beat the game'."

"Exactly!"

"So…how do we do that?"

"Well, in the Mystery Dungeon games there's usually this global threat and it's up to the human, in this case, us to put a stop to it."

"And what's the global threat?"

"The answer to that question is the Reaper shrug," answered Daniel as he gave his brother a huge shrug along with a stupid smile. "It varies from game to game. I can't even be sure if we are just re-enacting one of games." The Brionne gave a little thought, then gave a disgusted sigh. "God, I feel like we're in some kind of… fanfiction."

Mathew laughed at Daniel's sudden revelation when he heard something rustling in the bushes nearby. Suddenly, a Raticate and a black, puff cheeked Pokémon the looked a like a Raticate jumped out. The both growled as they inched toward the brothers, and the brothers inched backwards in response. "Here's a commonly asked question: who's that Pokémon?"

"Those are two Raticates," Daniel answered.

"Okay, I know I haven't played Pokémon in a while but the one on the left is not a Raticate."

"It's an Alolan Raticate."

"Alolan?"

"Yeah, gen seven introduced Alolan Pokémon, which usually differs in design, typing, and sometimes stats and- oh, now's not the time!"

"Are they friendly?"

"Do they look friendly?"

Mathew looked at the Raticates the were still growling and inching towards them and said, "No?"

"Of course not."

"Well, you're the Pokémon expert, what do we do?"

"Do you want to fight them?"

"No?"

"Neither do I."

"So… it's running?"

"Yeah, it's running."

The brothers both sprinted away at full speed, and the Raticates chased them down. Mathew put in a good two yards in a second before looking back and seeing that the two Raticates were already on top of Daniel. "Danny!" He screamed in worry. The Monferno started charging at the Raticates with a readied fist. The fist started to glow a bright white color as he punched the two rat Pokémon off his brother.

As Daniel got up with Mathew's help, he asked, "Dude, how did you do that?"

Mathew ignored his question. "Are you okay!? I thought we were running!"

"I tried to! You try running with these!" the Brionne exclaimed as lightly tapped Mathew's face with his flippers multiple times.

"Well, if you can't run, why did you say we should run?"

"Well, I kinda forgot I didn't have legs…"

"How do you forget that!?"

"Don't judge me while we're in a predicament." The brothers looked around to see a horde of Raticates surrounding them, all of them looking ready to attack at any point. "Okay… looks like running is OFFICIALLY out."

"I have a bad feeling about what plan B is."

"Do you have a better idea?"

"Pray to God that this is all a dream?"

"Is that REALLY a better idea, Mathew?"

"No…"

"In that case, we're fighting."

"How?"

"Did you just ask me- GO IN THERE AND PUNCH THEM IN THE FACE!"

On command, Mathew rushed up to a Raticate with the same glowing fist and punched it in the face. The Raticate ran away. "Hey, it worked!" exclaimed the exhilarated Monferno.

"Yeah, what a genius," groaned the slightly annoyed Brionne. He turned around and saw a very angry Raticate in coming near him. Now, he knew, it was his turn to force one to retreat. "Okay, Daniel," he said to himself, "You've done this hundreds of times in the shower and in the pool. It shouldn't be so different." Daniel took a deep breath opened his blasted a high-pressure stream of water from his mouth. At least, that's what he expected. What he got was a small stream of water that barely went 12 inches from him. Daniel looked at the failure that is a small stain on the ground, then he looked at the Raticate who just seemed confused. Daniel saw this chance to spit right into the Raticates eye, forcing it to screech in pain and run away. "Fucking nailed it."

Daniel looked to his brother to find that the monkey was actually kicking ass. He was easily handling three or four Raticates at the time, all the while his fists were either on fire or conducting electricity. Flabbergasted, Daniel asked, "Dude how are you doing that?"

"You mean the fists?" Mathew askes, "Honestly, I don't know; they just kinda started doing that."

"Oh, I know you have no idea about the Pokémon moves. I'm not having much luck with that either. I was walking you… actually kicking ass."

"Oh, well our father taught me some boxing some time ago. I didn't think I'd have to use it like this."

"Well, keep it up," Daniel said. Daniel, then, saw a wild Raticate gunning towards his brother from behind. "Look out!" he shouted as he lightly shoved Mathew to side for another attempt at shooting a water gun. Instead of a high-pressured stream of water, he shot a stream of snowy wind from his mouth, freezing the Raticate he aimed for.

The brothers looked at the frozen rat on the floor. Mathew looked at Daniel and said, "Some breath mint."

"Dude…" said the wide-eyed Brionne, "if we weren't fighting for our lives, I'd be geeking out so hard right now."

"I'm sure you would be. But in the meantime, look around us."

Daniel looked around to see that they were still surrounded by Raticates. "Okay, what the actual fuck?"

"Take out one, two more pop out."

"I feel like these kinds of situations should be mathematically impossible."

"Well, any bright ideas?"

Daniel thought for a while as the Raticates moved closer and closer. Between him and his brother, most of the moves they know are single target based, and icy wind is probably too weak a move to handle a whole bunch of Raticates. The best chance they got came down to luck. "Okay, I have an idea that might not work."

"What do you mean 'Might not work'?" question Mathew.

"Just do what I say and cover your ears."

"Why should I-"

"YOUR EARS!" On his brother's command, Mathew plugged up his ear with his hands. Daniel, ensuring the Mathew did plug up his ears, took a deep breath. And then…

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

The piercing scream that came from the Brionne did more than cause major ear damage to anyone too close. It did actual physical damage to the Raticates as well as cause major disorientation, messing up the Raticates' senses. Unable to fight back, the Raticates all ran away from source of the painful noise. Daniel ended his scream once he saw that the Raticates disappeared, panting from exhaustion due to using a powerful attack.

Mathew, with a headache caused by the scream, asked, "The hell was that!?"

"One of two things," answered Daniel, with a noticeably weaker voice, "Either I successfully used hyper voice to take out an entire horde of Raticate or I just screamed really loudly they found me annoying and ran away."

"Could it be both?"

"Maybe."

Daniel coughed and wheezed due to his extremely sore throat. Mathew, worried about his brother's health, asked, "Danny, are you okay?"

"I'm fine. I'm more worried about you though. I'm not sure covering your ears did a whole lot."

"Yeah, I came out with a headache. No loss of hearing though, surprisingly enough." Mathew saw Daniel mouth some words, but no sound came out. Not wanting this kind of bullshit, Mathew punched his brother in the arm.

"Ow!" Daniel yelped in pain.

"Yeah, you know that wasn't going to work."

"You could've at least pretended to be fooled."

"That would be called enabling." Mathew heard another rustling in the bushes. He instinctively put his arm in front of is brother. "Who's there!?" he yelled.

"Hello? Are you two lost?" said a feminine voice. From the bushes appeared a big, green, snake-like Pokémon.

"Who are you? What do you want?" questioned Mathew.

"Easy, Mathew. This Serperior is not hostile," said Daniel, slowly getting his voice back.

"How do you know?"

"Because she hasn't tried to kill us yet."

Mathew thought for a second and said, "Okay I'll give you that," he turned to the Serperior and said, "But why are you here?"

"Well," The Serperior replied, "A little Pidgey told me that there was a lost, screaming little girl in the forest. Would that be one of you?"

"Um," Daniel laughed nervously, "Was it a defensive scream or an existential crisis scream?"

"I assume the defensive scream was the hyper voice I heard that caused a horde of Raticates to nearly trample me?" the Serperior asked sharply.

"Yeah…" Daniel nervously raised his hand, "I would be guilty of that one."

"Hmm." The Serperior closely examined the two mysterious Pokémon before her. She had never seen either of them before, and their ability to chase off a horde of feral Pokémon was suspicious to say the least. Impressive, but still suspicious. She knew she shouldn't let these two out of her sight anytime soon. "I'd like to repeat my previous question: are you two lost?"

"Very lost." The brothers answered.

"If that's the case, would you like to come with me? I can provide shelter for one night."

The brothers, hearing this proposal decided to huddle. "What do you think?" asked Mathew.

"I think we can trust her."

"What!? You're going to trust some random stranger."

"Mathew, you're smart. I want you to REALLY think about our situation here. We are in another world where, right now, there is a one in, like, thirty chance that the next Pokémon we see might be hostile. Right now, everyone but the two of us are strangers. Right now, we have two options: take our chances with the Raticates at night or take our chances with a random Serperior. Both COULD get us kill, but only one of them could give us reliable shelter. Now, using my amazing Until Dawn decision making skills, I'd go with the one that provides better benefits."

"You got everyone killed in Until Dawn," argued Mathew.

"Intentionally," corrected Daniel, "which means I know a bad choice when I see one."

Mathew, impressed with his brother's logic, said, "Bro, when did you get so good at using logic?"

"I played Phoenix Wright."

"Alright then, we go with the snake."

"Serperior."

"… Right. Uh, is it a bad time to mention I only know, like, half of all the Pokémon."

"Yeah, which is why I'm the smart one now. Oh, how the tables have turned."

"Fuck you."

Daniel smiled and turned to the Serperior and said, "We'll come with you."

"Wonderful!" she said ecstatically, "Please follow me, it shouldn't take long at all."

The Serperior starting walk- slithering away as the brothers followed her. Mathew was deep in thought, he wasn't entirely sure what their future was. Were they really destined to save the world? Was there a grand adventure wait for these two brothers? What will become of them when this all over? He looked at Daniel, who also seemed to be deep in thought; looking at his three fingers on one of his flippers. "What are you thinking about, Daniel?" Mathew asked.

"Well, I have three fingers now."

"Yeah?"

"Which is an odd numbered amount of fingers."

"Okay?"

"Which means if I close my first and third fingers like this…"

He proceeded to do so holding it up in front of Mathew. Seeing how Daniel successfully flipped him off as a fucking seal, Mathew smiled and said, "Of course you'd be quick to figure that out."


	2. Handling It

"Mommy, Mommy!" said the young brothers as they ran towards their mother on the living room sofa.

"What is it, boys?" asked Elizabeth as she picked up the two of them and put them on the sofa.

"Look at what we made!" Daniel said as he gave his mother a folded piece of paper.

Elizabeth unfolded the paper to see a simple drawing on it. "What is this?" she asked, knowing fully well what it is.

"Well," Mathew began as he pointed at the two little stick figures on the drawing. "That's us." He then pointed at the larger stick figure. "That's Dad." He moved his finger to the slightly smaller stick figure with a skirt on. "That's you." He then moved his at the large square with a triangle on top. "And that's our house."

Elizabeth smile and then saw that the boys forgot to mention the smiling circle on the top corner of the paper, she pointed at it and asked, "What's that?"

"That's a sun," Daniel answered proudly, "I drew that!"

"Why is the sun smiling?" Elizabeth asked. Daniel looked at Mathew, who looked back as if he had the same question. After thinking about it, Daniel said, "I don't know."

"Well, I love it," Elizabeth said, as she hugged her two sons.

. . .

"MATHEW! WAKE UP!"

"WHAT!?" Mathew quickly got up from his bed and bumped his head on Daniel's. While rubbing their heads from the pain of the impact, Mathew turned to his brother to tell him off, only to realize that his brother was a Pokémon now. He looked down to see that his bed was a haystack, and then he looked around to see that they were in some kind of shack. He remembered the events of yesterday, and much of a shock it all was to him. In many ways, he's still in shock. Most of yesterday seemed like a dream; not necessarily a bad dream, but definitely not a dream he'd want to have. "What's going on?" he asked his brother.

"You were still asleep," replied Daniel, who was still holding his flipper on his head, "I mean, I know you like to sleep but it's nearly one o' clock in the afternoon."

"Yeah, you're right. I really shouldn't - wait, how do you know it's one o' clock?"

"The clock above you." Daniel pointed at the clock that was above Mathew.

"And where is that… Severus?"

"Serperior."

"Yeah, that one."

"I don't know. She hasn't checked on us yet."

Mathew looked around and said, "Don't you think it's a little suspicious that she left us sleeping in a locked shack."

"Oh, please. We weren't sleeping in a locked shack."

"Really?"

"Yeah, we were sleeping in an unlocked one."

"Danny, that's not much better."

"Listen, I can understand that you're not in the trusting mood, due to our current situation. But, for now, let little bro handle things from here on out."

"Last time I let you 'handle something', we got suspended from school for a week."

"All I did was call her a 'little bitch'. And you know she was."

"I'm not so sure if letting you handle things is such a good idea."

"Come on, what's the worth that could happen?"

While Mathew was sorting through laundry list of worst-things-that-could-happen, there was a knock on the shack door. "Are you boys up?" asked the Serperior behind the door, "I heard some commotion, so I thought you two would be awake."

"Yeah, come on in," Daniel answered.

The Serperior entered to see the brothers with their hands on their foreheads. Not sure what's going on, she put the end of her tail on her own forehead. "Hello?" she nervously greeted.

The brothers quickly put down their hands and Daniel said, "It's nothing. We just kinda headbutted each other earlier."

Serperior, understanding the situation, put her tail down and continued, "Well, I want to talk to you two boys. Could you come with me?"

"Sure," Daniel answered for before Mathew could object. Despite Mathew's uncertainty, the two brothers followed the Serperior outside the shack and into her house.

 _The Baffling Bravo Brothers_

 _Chapter 2: Handling It_

"I hope my house won't be too uncomfortable for you two. Normally, when I invite guests, I clean about three days early," said the Serperior as she opened the door to her house. The Bravo brothers entered the house and suddenly got a feeling that was very… familiar. With chair, tables, and photos around the house, it looked very similar to most houses they've seen back in their own world. Both of the brothers just stared in awe as the eerily familiar feeling of the house seeped in. "Is everything okay?" asked the Serperior, snapping the brothers from the trance.

"Y-yes," replied Daniel, "it's just that the décor is very similar to a house where we come from."

"Oh, so you are foreigners," said the Serperior, "I thought you'd might be, but I thought I would be too rude to ask."

"Y-yes, foreigners. That is what we are." Daniel looked at Mathew, who opted to keep his mouth shut to let his brother "handle it", with a dumb smile. Mathew just sighed and shook his head.

"Please, have a seat," The Serperior said, gesturing to a sofa with her tail. There was a table next to the sofa and a chair on the other side of the table. The brothers sat down on the sofa while she sat, err, coiled up on the chair. "Comfortable?" she asked.

"Y-yeah," Daniel replied, though it was kind of a half-lie. Though the sofa itself is comfortable, the feeling the brothers had was still a little unsettling.

"Wonderful. Shall we start with introductions? My name is Miranda Serventine."

Daniel nodded and said, "My name is Daniel Bravo, and this grumpy Monferno is my brother, Mathew Bravo." Mather gave a glaring glance towards Daniel, which was ignored.

"B-brothers?" Miranda said with a flabbergasted voice. "Excuse me for saying, but you two don't really look like brothers."

"Don't worry, we get that a lot. Technically we're half-brothers, but just saying 'brothers' is so much easier."

"Half-brothers?" Miranda still seemed confused. "With the same last name?"

"Yeah. We had different mothers. I guess you could say he's my brotha from anotha motha." Daniel smiled and nudged at Mathew who continued to look like a grumpy Monferno.

"Well, normally a Pokémon would be given their mother's last name."

"Oh… th-that's new information." Daniel started to smile nervously as Mathew rolled his eyes.

"Though, I guess it is your country's custom," Miranda said, "If you don't mind me asking, what country are you two from?"

"Um…" Daniel started laughing nervously. He knew this was going to be a question, but he hasn't prepared an answer. Trying to avoid the patient but piercing gaze of the Serperior, he blurted out, "Treasure Town."

"I see," Miranda said, her gaze unchanging. "And how long have you been in this country?"

"A-about a d-day so far," Daniel said with increasing nervousness. The room fell silent. Daniel had a big nervous smile on his face, Miranda continued her curious glare towards the brothers, and Mathew cracked a grin, enjoying his brother's breakdo- I mean- enjoying his brother's method of handling it. With an attempt to break the silence, Daniel said, "Well…"

"I think you're lying to me," Miranda said coldly. Before Daniel could get a word in, she continued, "First you appear out of no in a forest you had no business being in. Next, you claim to have successfully fended off a horde of feral Raticates. Now you're claiming to be from Treasure Town, which is in Armoc. Three days from our village, might I add. And, in case you didn't already know, Armoc is the country we are in, which contradicts your claim on being foreigners. It also contradicts your claim as half-brothers from different mothers, since the custom in Armoc is that children would be their mother's last name. So, let's try this again. My name is Miranda Serventine. Who. Are. You. Two?"

Daniel machine broke. He is just mentally broken right now. He can't get any whole word out, only unintelligible noises. Mathew leaned over to his brother and whispered, "You're handling this really well."

"Bite my ass, Mathew," he said angrily.

"Hey, it's not my fault you're a terrible liar."

Daniel sighed. "I know, I'm sorry."

"It's okay." Mathew started patting Daniel on the back. "There, there. It will all be alright."

Daniel took Mathew's hand and pushed it away from his back. "I reiterate: bite my ass."

"Excuse me, you still have me to deal with." The brothers looked over to see the still angry Serperior glaring at the two of them.

Mathew decided to take control. "I'm sorry ma'am, but I need to talk to my brother about something."

"About what?" Miranda asked aggressively.

"About whether or not he should be lying in the first place." Mathew turned to his brother and asked, "Is it necessary to keep this secret?"

Daniel, looking disappointed, said, "Honestly, I don't know."

"Really?" Mathew asked with surprise. "Yesterday, you were calm and collected… ish while I was completely freaking out. What brought about this change?"

"Because…" Daniel paused. The answer wasn't something he'd want to admit, but, after a breath, he said, "I thought I would be the one who would know what to do in our situation. I thought I would have to be the one to solve our little problem."

"And I would just be some bumbling buffoon of a brother?"

"You WERE a bumbling buffoon of a brother yesterday."

"Might I remind you that YOU were the bumbling buffoon of a brother for the past twenty years before yesterday?"

"True." The brothers laughed it out, then Daniel said, "Sorry if it sounded like I thought you were useless."

"It's okay, I also thought you were mostly useless for twenty years."

"Right." After a brief pause, Daniel realized what his brother just said. "Hey!" As the brothers were glaring and smiling at each other at the same time, Miranda started laughing. "Oh wait," Daniel said with realization, "she's still here."

"Is everything alright?" Mathew asked the laughing Serperior.

"I'm fine," Miranda said, "it's just that you two are making it really difficult for me to be suspicious of you."

"That's a good thing, right?" Daniel asked.

"For now, it is," Miranda asked. "Right now, I am inclined to believe that you do not pose a threat, but it does not excuse you two for lying to me."

"Actually, it was the idiot next to me that lied to you," Mathew said, provoking another glaring glance from Daniel.

"Well, in that case, let me ask YOU," Miranda said, looking intensely at Mathew, "What is your story?"

Mathew looked to Daniel and asked, "Do we tell her?" he asked his brother.

Daniel sighed and said, "You decide that now, I already fucked it up."

After thinking about it for a while, Mathew looked to Miranda and said, "We are humans from another world."

There was a long silence when those words were uttered. Miranda and Mathew continued to stare at each other while Daniel is starting to get a mild headache. After two minutes of complete silence, Miranda finally said, "Alright."

Not expecting the response, the brothers quickly looked at Miranda, then at each other, then back at Miranda and said, "Alright?"

"Pieces fit together if I were to believe that you two are humans from another world."

Mathew, bewildered by this sudden change of events, asked, "S-so you believe us?"

"Well," Miranda began, "it wouldn't be the first time that a Pokémon claiming to be human appeared."

 _Of course not,_ Daniel thought as he slapped his own forehead.

"But there are still several questions that I would like to have answered."

"Trust me, I would answer any question you have, but we don't really know much about our situation either," said Mathew.

"I'm sure you would, but this question is going to your Brionne brother specifically."

"Whooza whatnow?" said Daniel, not expecting to be called out.

"Why did you lie to me, Daniel?" asked Miranda sharply.

Daniel looked at Mathew, who looked back as if he had the same question. Daniel sighed and said, "I didn't expect you to believe me."

"I thought as much," Miranda said with sudden understanding, making Daniel slightly confused. "It is natural to lie when the truth beyond belief. However, you should know that it is better to tell an unbelievable truth than lying with little to no knowledge of what you're lying about."

Trying to understand, Daniel asked, "So… you were mad because I lied badly?"

"No, I was mad because you lied to me," Miranda said, "I'm just saying that, in the future, if you MUST lie at least know what you're lying about." The brothers gave an understanding nod as Miranda continued, "By the way, if I find out that you two are lying about this whole human, I won't be happy." Miranda gave a piercing glare as she said that, giving chills down the brother's spines. Miranda got off her chair and said, "Alright, now follow me."

Confused, Mathew asked, "To where?"

"To my guild; you two are going to become explorers."

"HEH!?" the brothers said together with extreme confusion.

Miranda chuckled and said, "You two are really lucky it was me of all people who found you. I suppose I should give you my full introduction: My name is Miranda Serventine, guild master of the Maple Guild."

The brothers just stared in confusion as Miranda seemed to give off some kind of pose. Mathew leaned over to Daniel and asked, "This is a good thing, right?"

Daniel, who is not entirely sure himself, said, "Yyyyyyyyyes, this is what we want."

Miranda stopped posing and enthusiastically said, "Well, enough wasting time, come on!" Miranda slithered out the door.

Without anything else to do, the brothers got off the sofa to follow. With something bugging him, Daniel asked Mather, "So what made you decide to tell Miranda about us being humans. Yesterday, and even today, you were skeptical about her."

"Well," Mathew responded, "Talking with her changed my mind a lot. She was kind enough to give us, complete strangers, a place to sleep, and she seems to really loathe liars."

"Yeah, I learned THAT the hard way."

"I also kinda figured that, if not her, then we will have to find someone else to trust. Either that or we would have to go through the world by ourselves, and I don't trust our skills at survival to do that."

"Yeah, you were always bad at survival mode."

"Yeah, shut up." Daniel laughed as Mathew gave a large sigh. "Also… she reminded me of Mom a little." Daniel looked at Mathew when he said this. Mathew continued, "I don't if it's that she actually acts like Mom or if it is just me missing Mom like hell, but Miranda kinda has that mother-like quality to her somehow."

Daniel let out a huge sigh of relief as he said, "Thank god it's not just me!"

"Really? You had the same thought?"

"Yeah, it's actually the reason I trusted her so much yesterday. I just opted to keep it to myself because I thought you'd think it would be a little weird to view a Pokémon as a mother figure."

"Really? You knew nothing about her and she reminded you of your mother?"

"Dude, we were fighting for our lives against a horde of little vermin; at that point, anyone would look like a mother coming to save us."

Mathew shrugged. "I guess." It was then that Mathew had a curious thought. "Hey, do you think our parents are in this world."

Daniel thought about it and said, "I kinda wish they are."

"Why?"

"Because, if they're not, then how the hell are we going to explain to them that we got transported into another world? It'd be easier just to say we got lost on our way home."

Mathew grinned and said, "Yeah, I don't think they'll believe us if we tell them that we found ourselves in Treasure Town on our way home."

"I swear to god I'll pop you in the mouth."


	3. Pompous Fuck Waffle

"Okay, you two," Johnson said to his sons from across the table, "Since you're in your final years of high school, I think it's time to practice for your job interviews."

"Interview for what job?" Daniel asked.

"Any job. Almost every job will have a similar method when interviewing potential employees. Are you two, ready?"

Mathew said, "Yes, sir," while Daniel just shrugged.

Johnson started his mock interview with the question, "Would you tell us a bit about yourself?"

"I play video games and-" Daniel was interrupted by a loud buzzer noise emitted by his father.

"Wrong! Your employers don't are about your hobbies," Johnson said. He turned to Mathew and said, "Same question."

"Uh… I don't really understand how to answer this question, either," Mathew admitted.

"It's simple!" Johnson said, "All you have to do is give a short idea of how you are qualified for the job."

"That's not simple, that's a completely different question!" Daniel said.

"Well, he still expected you to talk about yourself, just in a more specific way," Mathew explained.

"Then why not ask a more specific question? Are they trying to trick us into saying something wrong thing even though we answered their question the same way we would answer anyone else the same question?"

"They expect you to know the rules of a job interview when going to a job interview."

Annoyed, Daniel asked, "So is every question a trick question?"

"Yes, and it's up to you to know how to answer them."

"That is so stupid," Daniel, hold onto his head in frustration.

. . .

"So, do they have vacation days?" asked Mathew.

"I don't know," said Daniel.

"Insurance?"

"I don't know."

"Dental plans?"

"I don't know! Why are you asking me this stuff?"

"I thought you were the 'Pokémon expert'."

Daniel gave an annoyed sigh and said, "Okay, to be more specific, I am an expert on Pokémon on a biological level. I don't know shit about Pokémon governments or their employee benefits."

Miranda turned to the bickering brothers and said, "Quit bickering you two, we're here."

The brothers looked over Miranda to see that there was a large collection of tents the covered a very large area of land. There were many different kinds of Pokémon communing in the area, many of which Mathew did not recognize. "Yooooo…" Daniel said in awe, "This is SO cool!"

"Isn't it?" Miranda said in agreement.

"Yeah, but it looks more like a market place," Mathew said.

"It is… kinda," Miranda said, "it's both a guild and a market place. It's… a little complicated. Come, I'll tell you on the way to our office tent." Miranda started slivering into the market place and the boys followed. "You see, we are different from most other exploration guilds. While of them deal with discovering uncharted territory and charting them, we mostly deal with exploring ancient ruins and collecting ancient artifacts for museums and such. Sometimes, though, we get artifacts that are so common that museum would probably already have one and don't want another."

"That's where the market place comes in?" Mathew asked.

"Exactly, well, a little bit. It's true that we sell artifact for people who are into ancient history, but the market place became a thing mostly because the shopkeepers kinda moved in."

"'Moved in'?"

"Yeah they just… moved in. One day a shopkeeper just plopped his tent next to ours and we didn't really care enough question it. And then another came, and another one, and another, and then it kind of became this big place you see now. We didn't stop it because it was good for all our businesses. People who come to see our guild also see the shopkeepers who would try to sell them their products, and people who come to see the shopkeepers now know that we exist and they don't have to go all the way to the Wigglytuff Guild if they need help. Not only that, it became community for Pokémon who live nearby. We're all winners!"

"So, some shopkeepers moved in and it was lowkey one of the best corporate decisions ever made," Daniel summarized.

"Pretty much!" Miranda said, smiling the Brionne's humorous summarization. "Oh, here is the office tent," she said as they came up upon a dark orange tent significantly bigger than any of the other tents they have seen up to now. On the roof of the tent was looked like an insignia of a maple leaf.

Daniel leaned over to his brother and whispered, "Look, it's the Canadian guild."

Mathew disapprovingly looked at his brother and said, "Be mature about this; we need to make a good impression."

"Yeah, yeah."

"Are you two boys ready?" Miranda asked, to which the two brothers nodded. "Alright then, take your first step into becoming members of the Maple Guild!"

 _The Baffling Bravo Brothers_

 _Chapter Three: Pompous Fuck Waffle_

When the boys entered the tent, they saw exactly three other Pokémon inside. One Pokémon, at a desk to their immediate right, was a Florges who seemed to be focusing some kind of energy at a doll. The second Pokémon, who was at a desk at the far-left end of the tent with many stacks of paper on top of it, was a Gardevoir who was using telekinesis to read, write, and stamp various documents. The last Pokémon was at the end of the tent; an Alakazam who was meditating with two spoons in mid-air directly across from where the brothers are. There were two more desks at the immediate left and the far-right end of the tent, but they were empty. The brothers started to move closer but were stopped by a powerful voice.

"Hold where you are!" the brothers immediately held where they are as the looked at the Alakazam, the origin of the voice. Suddenly, a stamper struck him directly at the forehead, leaving a maple leaf marking on the psychic's forehead.

"Turn it down, you pompous fuck waffle! I'm trying to work here," said the Gardevoir.

"S-sorry, Gabe," said the Alakazam, who was scrubbing the maple leaf off his forehead, "Are these new recruits, Miranda?" Neither Miranda nor the brothers answer, as they were too busy laughing at the Alakazam. The Alakazam, unamused, said, "Miranda!"

Through the laughter, Miranda said, "Y-Yes?"

"Who are these two?"

"They're new recruits, you pompous fuck waffle."

Alexander gave a large sigh and put his hand on his head, "And the new recruits are?"

Mathew, who was the only one between the two brothers who could control his laughter, "I'm Mathew and this is my little brother, Daniel."

"Greetings," the Alakazam said, "I am Alexander Alkama, and I am the guild master in charge of recruitment in this guild."

"Guild master?" Daniel asked and turned to Miranda, "I thought you said were the guild master."

"I am!" Miranda said, "The guild master in charge of mission ranking and land mapping. Here, we have different guild masters working on different things." She gestured to the Florges and said, "That's Flora, the guild master in charge of medical emergencies." She then gestured to the Gardevoir. "The grumpy Gardevoir over there manages our financial paperwork." She finally turned to Alexander. "And the pompous fuck waffle manages recruitment."

"Could you please stop calling me that," the pompous fuck waffle pleaded.

"Oh no, that's at least a monther." After laughing a little, Miranda looked around and asked, "Where's Torya?"

"Still on that 'all important mission'," said Gabe, "Told him that taking a suspicious mission from an unknown client was not a good idea."

"I see…" Miranda briefly had a worried look before saying, "But I'm sure he's fine. Besides, we have more pressing matters. These two Pokémon have quite a story."

"And what story would that be?"

Mathew did some finger guns and said, "We're both humans."

Daniel, after facepalming, said, "Why the finger guns?"

"So that the probable shock of revealing our human origins would be lessened," said Mathew without much confidence.

"Y-You're a fucking idiot," Daniel said with a minor headache.

"Enough, you two," said Alexander, "This is a precious matter that is not meant to be joked about."

"We are the jokes," stated Daniel.

The Brionne's statement confused the pompous fuck waffle, who turned to Miranda and asked, "You believe these two are humans?"

"It's the only thing that makes sense to me considering the circumstances," said Miranda, "though we could confirm it if we put them through the recruitment process."

Daniel immediately raised his finger to say, "Okay, that makes me really worried on what the recruitment process is."

"Worry not, the recruitment process is very swift," reassure Alexander, "Come closer, young Brionne."

Brionne moved closer and stopped when came to arm's length of the Alakazam. The Alakazam, then, grabbed one of his floating spoons. He placed his spoon on the Brionne's forehead, and then he whacked him with it. "OW! FUCK!" screeched Daniel in pain while his brother just laughed.

"Hm, it does appear to be true," Alakazam said, "He is a human from another world with a brother named Mathew."

"You read minds by whacking people with your spoon?" asked Daniel.

"I thought you were the Pokémon expert on a biological level," said Mathew.

"YOU SHUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTH!" yelled Daniel before taking a stamper to the forehead, leaving a maple leaf marking on his forehead.

"Quiet, you dicknosed turd biscuit!" said Gabe.

The dicknosed turd biscuit, after hearing that, turned to his brother and asked, "Did you notice that he has a British accent?"

Mathew nodded, "Now I have, since you mentioned it."

"I'm suddenly okay with being with being whacked in the head with a spoon and getting struck by stamper and being called a 'dicknosed turd biscuit'."

"Anyway," Alexander said, getting the attention of the brothers, "I'm going to need the Monferno now."

Now on the defensive, Mathew said, "I thought you confirmed our human origin with Daniel."

"Stand procedure: the recruitment process must be done to all recruits," Alexander explained.

"Yeah, Mathew. The recruitment process must be done to all recruits," Daniel repeated with evil delight.

Mathew, with a miniscule of hesitation, slowly approached the Alakazam. Upon the Monferno's arrival, Alexander placed his spoon on Mathew's forehead, then he lightly tapped him on the head. This left Daniel flabbergasted.

"Wh-What happened to smacking him in the forehead?" asked the dicknosed turd biscuit, feeling cheated.

"Oh, the smack wasn't necessary; I just didn't like you," explained Alexander, leaving the Brionne speechless.

As Daniel mouth the words "the fuck did I do" to himself, Miranda said, "Don't sleep on us now; the recruitment process isn't over yet!"

"There's more?" asked Mathew with concern.

"Don't worry, it isn't as bad as what you went through," reassured Miranda, "Unless, of course, you're afraid of DYING!"

"At this point, I am strongly considering the sweet release of death," said the salty Brionne.

Surprised by this statement, Miranda said, "I hope you were kidding like I was." Daniel just gave a very weak laugh in response. With some concern for the Brionne's mental state, Miranda continued, "A-Anyway, you two will be completing a simple search and retrieve mission. You will enter a nearby dungeon, one that is fairly harmless, and bring back a specific item from it. Simple!"

Mathew, still with some skepticism, said, "I suppose you do make it sound easy."

"Worry not, dear brother," said the Brionne who was making his voice sound dramatically deeper, "with our strength combines, we shall overcome any challenge this strange world can throw at us."

"Said the guy that almost got killed by a couple of Raticates."

"SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH n00b," Daniel aggressively said.

Mathew rolled his eyes and asked, "Alright, what's the mission?"

. . .

The Mountainside Cave was located a short way east from the Maple Guild. The entrance was very large and visible as there was nothing covering it, not even a forest. There wasn't much inside the cave either, not even many feral Pokémon to make this cave pose any kind of threat someone who was competent in defending oneself. It was clear to see why the guild would use this cave as starting dungeon for new recruits. It was so easy that Daniel and Mathew were having a casual conversation while traversing it.

"It's called rule thirty-four, Mathew," Daniel said in frustration, "People will masturbate to LITERALLY ANYTHING! Including that fucking snake from the Jungle Book."

"That doesn't explain why you KNOW this shit, you weird fuck!" Mathew said in response.

"You're not the only one cursed with knowledge."

"Danny, this isn't the kind of porn you happen upon accidentally."

"Oh, you have no idea what you happen upon accidentally on the Internet. I, personally, accidently happened upon the comedy gold mine called the PornHub comments section."

Mathew, who was now having a small headache said, "Why?"

"Half of the comedy is the fact that it is on a PornHub."

"That's not what I… never mind."

As the brothers continue to move deeper into the dungeon, a floating rock started to slowly approach them. "Geodude," Daniel said, signaling his brother to pause.

"That is indeed a Geodude," Mathew said, "Is it feral?"

"I don't know."

"Well, how can we tell?"

Daniel thought for a moment, then decided that the optimal strategy was to wave at the Geodude and say, "Suh dude!?" very loudly.

"Evening young lad! What a wonderful day we have!" is what the Geodude probably would say if he wasn't feral, maybe. The Geodude throwing a bunch of rocks at the brothers is what actually happened.

The brothers took cover behind a stalagmite as Mathew asked, "Was that really the best way to find out if he was feral or not?"

"To be fair, Mathew, who would attack someone who gave a friendly greeting?" Daniel said in his defense.

"Assholes?"

"True. So now it's either that or he's a feral. And since he attacked first, this is justifiable self-defense. I play Phoenix Wright!"

Mathew shrugged in agreement and asked, "So what's the plan for dealing with him?"

"It's called a one-shotting him with a Water Gun."

"Didn't you fuck it up last time you tried to use that move?"

"SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH n00b," Daniel said aggressively. Daniel peeked from behind the stalagmite; the Geodude was still extremely focused on throwing rocks at their cover. Seeing this, Daniel quickly hopped out of cover for an attempt at a decent Water Gun to knock the Geodude out. He opened his mouth aaaand… let out a powerful stream of water the pushed the Geodude onto the wall, knocking him out.

"Holy shit, man. You did it," Mathew said, coming out of his cover.

"Hell yeah!" Daniel exclaimed with delight. "I learned that most basic water-type move!"

After laughing alongside Daniel's excitement, Mathew asked, "How did you know that the Water Gun was going to knock him out immediately?"

Daniel look at his brother in disappointment. "Geodudes always faint in one hit with Water Gun. You should know this!"

"To what extent are we going to apply video game logic to this world?"

"Until it stops working."

"That… seems irresponsible."

"What other choice do have? We've only been in this world for about two days; the only information we have is what we remember from the games."

"I guess that's true."

"See?" Daniel tapped his head. "Brains." Daniel pointed at Mathew. "Brawn."

Mathew raised an eyebrow and said, "You failed your first semester of college."

"SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH n00b," Daniel said aggressively. After Mathew rolled his eyes, the brothers continued deeper into the cave.

The brothers reached what appeared to be the end of the cave, which was large and open. At the middle of the room was a red rock, which the brothers picked up. Mathew said, "Well here it is. The red rock."

"What's so special about a red fucking rock?" asked Daniel.

Mathew examined the rock and saw something off about it. He rubbed the rock and a bit of its red came off and stuck onto Mathew's thumb. "It's paint. This rock isn't special, it's just a part of the test."

"Well, I guess it makes sense. Easy as fuck dungeon, easy as fuck objective, easy as fuck recruitment. Honestly, the trial of the Alakazam was harder."

Mathew leaned closer and whisper, "Dicknosed turd biscuit."

"You don't do it right," Daniel blankly said.

As they were about to leave they hear loud footsteps coming towards them. The brothers turned to see a very angry looking Graveler slowly coming towards them. Upon seeing the Pokémon, Daniel asked, "Okay, Mathew: Who's that Pokémon?"

"A very angry Graveler that is probably about to hurt us," Mathew answered.

"Oh, don't worry, same story as the Geodude only it MIGHT survive one hit. Still shouldn't take long," Daniel said. As if in response to Daniel, the earth below started to shake. Rocks fell from below as Mathew tried to keep his balance. It didn't really affect Daniel because of him being a seal and thus didn't have to worry about staying on two feet. But he would soon have something to worry about as something began opening a hole from below. From that hole, a large, silver, snake-like being appeared from the ground to face the brothers. It gave a powerful towards the brothers.

Mathew nervously pointed at it and said, "And what about the Steelix?"

"Yeah, we MIGHT be screwed," Daniel said in shock.

The Steelix swung its tail at the brothers, which split the two apart and made them fall as they tried to dodge. Mathew, after getting up, kept his eyes on the overgrown snake and yelled to his brother, "Plan!?"

Daniel brushed some debris off his shoulder and said, "Keep the Steelix busy! I'm gonna go for the Graveler!"

"What kind of plan is tha- AAHHG!" Mathew got interrupted by the swing tail that struck him, which he held on to in order keep Steelix's attention on him.

As he saw his brother get swung around and around on the tail of the Steelix, Daniel said, "Good going, bro!" and turned his attention to the Graveler. The Graveler threw a rock at the Brionne, who reacted by shooting a Water Gun at the airborne rock, destroying it. Daniel then shot another Water Gun at the Graveler, which knocked the rock-type back into the wall. The Graveler tried to go for a counterattack, but got shot by another Water Gun, making him faint. After finishing the minor inconvenience off, Daniel turned back to his brother and the Steelix.

Mathew was still hanging on for dear life as the Steelix slammed his tail into walls trying to get the annoying Monferno off of him. Luckily, Mathew was able to reposition himself in order to not get hit by a wall. Suddenly, the Steelix got hit by a torrent of water, making him lose his focus and slow down his tail. Mathew, seizing the opportunity, positioned himself to be able to run on the beast's tail. He charged up a Fire Punch as he built up the momentum he needed to make this hit count. He jumped up towards the snake's face and unleashed his Fire Punch. The Steelix… flinched. Then he slammed Mathew into the ground with his tail.

"MATHEW!" Daniel yelled in concern. He ran up to his brother, who was slowly getting back up. "Are you okay?"

After moaning in pain, Mathew responded, "Okay enough to keep going." Mathew gave a confused look towards the undamaged Steelix and said, "I thought fire-type moves were strong against steel-types."

"True," Daniel said, "but you forget tha- AAHHG!" Daniel was interrupted by a tail, much like his brother earlier. But this time the tail was wrapped around him. The Steelix swung the Brionne onto walls before tossing him into the ceiling. Daniel fell from the ceiling and hit the floor hard. Seeing as how Daniel couldn't move after being tossed around like a ragdoll, the Steelix opted to finish him off by slamming his tail on him. Just before the tail struck the Brionne, Mathew ran in front of his brother to catch the tail before it could deal its finishing blow. He succeeded, but now was feeling the full weight of the Steelix trying to push him down. Mathew tried to turn his head to his brother, who was halfway into getting back up. "Are you okay, Danny?" Mathew asked, but there was no response; the Brionne seemed to be in a state of shock. "DANIEL!" Mathew yelled.

Daniel snapped out of it and turned to see his brother holding up Steelix's tail. "Holy shit, dude," he said, impressed by his brother's strength.

"Yeah, I can't hold this for long," Mathew explained "What's the plan?"

"Use Ember."

"The fuck's an ember!?"

"You know, the most basic fire-type move?"

"I thought that was Flamethrower."

"Ember is just a weaker Flamethrower."

"Okay, how do I use it?"

"I don't know. Just imagine you're in the shower and you filled your mouth with water and are about to spit it out. Only this time you're about to spit out fire."

"That seems-"

"JUST DO IT!" Daniel shot another Water Gun at Steelix, which was considerably stronger than his last ones, making the Steelix roar in pain. Mathew felt some of the Steelix's weight being lifted after the blast. Seeing this, the Monferno decided to take his brother's advice and attempted to use Ember, using the scenario his brother gave him as a reference. A strong torrent flames shot out of the Monferno's mouth and hit the Steelix on the tail. The Steelix roared in pain again, lifting his tail off Mathew. "That's the shit!" Daniel cheered, "Keep doing that until he's down!"

The brother's ran around the Steelix, shooting it with their respective special moves. The Steelix was unable to do anything since the two brothers never stayed in one place and the impact of the ranged attacks was too much for him to bear. Eventually, the Steelix fell down, unconscious. "Wooooooo…" Daniel said weakly in celebration before falling down himself.

Mathew, seeing his exhausted brother, put Daniel's arm around his shoulders to carry him. He grabbed the red rock they were supposed to collect and started to leave the dungeon. "How are you holding up?" Mathew asked his weary brother.

"I'm not. You are." Daniel responded with a chuckle.

Mathew chuckled before asking, "So, care to explain why my Fire Punch did nothing?"

"I didn't think you'd know Pokémon on a statistical level," Daniel said, "To put it simply, your Fire Punch on Steelix was as effective as a human punching a brick wall."

"Was it really that ineffective?"

"We're talking about you, a human-turned-mid-evolution-Pokémon against a Steelix, who has a base defense of two hundred. FUCKING TWO HUNDRED!"

"Oh," Mathew said understandingly before realizing that he doesn't exactly understand. "How high is that?"

"Only two other Pokémon has that kind of defense, and one of them is a fucking legendary. LEGENDARY!"

"I see," Mathew said, understanding for real this time.

"Now here is a question for you: how much what do you swallow then spit out when you shower?"

"I-I don't really do it that much."

"Then how the fuck are you using Flamethrower already?"

"I don't know! Was I using Flamethrower? Should I know how to use Flamethrower? I just kinda understood that I should be able to breathe fire, so I did. Is that wrong?"

"No, none of it is wrong; I just wanted to make sure you knew what you were doing."

"I'm pretty sure I still have no idea what I'm doing."

"I meant you have a basic understanding on how a Monferno works, you punch things and breathe fire."

Mathew chuckled, "You make it sound easy."

"There's a reason for that." Daniel looked at his brother with a dumb smile. Mathew returned the smile as he carried his brother back to the Maple Guild.

. . .

Mathew and Daniel, who was able to move by himself now, finally returned to the Maple Guild office tent from their challenging recruitment mission. The Monferno held up the red rock and said, "We got your special rock!"

"Very good," Alexander, who did not move a fucking inch since the brothers left, said, "Please give the red rock here."

Mathew, instead of coming over and handing the rock to Alexander, opted to throw the rock across the tent and strike him directly on the forehead. This was enough to make Alexander lose concentration and drop to the floor. Gabe laughed at the pompous fuck waffle's position. The Alakazam got up and asked, "Is there something I did that angered you?"

Before Mathew could explain, Miranda entered the tent saying, "You boys are back! How did it go?"

Mathew, in a fit of anger, explained, "You failed to mention the FUCKING STEELIX THAT ALMOST KILLED US!"

Miranda, with a confused look, said, "There was never any Steelix since the last time we checked those caverns." Mathew, who didn't want to hear that shit, merely glared at the Serperior. Miranda, finally noticing the multiple bruises on the two brothers, said with great regret, "Oh my, I made a grave error." She immediately bowed at the two brothers (I'll let you imagine how a snake bows) and said, "I'm sorry! I'm so, so sorry you two! I'll get Flora right now!" She immediately left the tent in a haste.

Afterwards, Alexander spoke again, "So you've encountered a Steelix that was not meant to be there. What happened after?"

"We kicked its ass and left," Daniel answered.

Shocked, the Alakazam said, "You two defeated it? By yourselves?"

"Of course, we did, how else did you think we cam back here with our lives?"

Alexander looked at Gabe, who said, "They did come back with their lives."

The Alakazam gave a sigh and said, "Very well, I suppose there is only one thing left to do." Alexander used his psychic powers to floats a chest from the back of the tent towards the brothers. As the chest arrived in front of the two brothers, Alexander said, "This is the Exploration Team Kit given to all members of the Maple Guild. Congratulations, you two are official Maple Guild explorers now."

The brothers looked and nodded at each other as they both opened the chest together. Inside, the brothers saw a large bag, a rolled-up piece of paper, and two badges that looked like Pokéballs with wings. Mathew picked up the piece of paper and unrolled it as Daniel picked up the bag and looked inside it. Mathew saw that the paper was a detailed map of the country of Armoc, complete with a compass rose and list of key locations in the country. Mathew looked to his brother to explain, but he saw that his brother put his head inside the bag. "Danny," Mathew said, expecting a complete question afterwards, but all that came out was, "why?"

Daniel, who couldn't see his brother on the count of having a bag covering his head, said with excitement, "Dude! This bag is bigger on the inside!"

"Could you concen- wait, what!?" Mathew dropped the mapped and took the bag from his brother's head and put on his own. What his brother said is true, the bag inside was at least three times as big as it was outside. "Holy crap, you're right!" Mathew said with the same excitement as Daniel.

"I know!"

Alexander, chuckling at the brother's amazement, said, "That is the Treasure Bag. You can keep many useful items inside."

"Yeah, we know how bags work," Daniel said.

"You also have the Wonder Map-"

"Yeah, we know how maps work, too."

"And the badge…" Alexander paused, expecting another smartass response from the Brionne. He continued, "Is your official exploration badges. It has a multitude of uses, but first you'll need to turn them on."

Mathew took off the bag from his head and grabbed a badge from the chest along with his brother. There was a button on the middle of each badge which the brothers pressed. When they did, a holographic screen appeared in front of each badge with a message that said, "Congratulations on becoming explorers! Please enter your name and team name." There was a holographic keyboard in order to enter the names.

The brothers each entered their names on the hologram. Mathew looked at his brother and asked, "What's our team name?"

Daniel gave some thought then said, "I got it! 'The Baffling Bravo Brothers'!"

"I… like it," Mathew said, "How'd you come up with that?"

"Well, we're brothers, both our last names are Bravo, and there's a good chance that no one is going to know what the fuck we're saying, hence 'baffling'. Also, the alliteration is fucking sexy."

The brothers smiled as they inputted the story's title as their team name and turned off their badges in satisfaction. With their task done, Alexander said, "As I said, that bade much more than proof of your association to us. I suggest you take time understand all of its features."

Suddenly, Miranda came rushing back into the tent with Flora. "They're right here!" she said in worry, "Please take a look at them, they don't seem too-"

"They're both fine, they just need rest," Flora coldly said.

"Are you sure, because they are covered in bruises and it doesn't look like they-"

"The Florges already fucked off," Daniel said.

Miranda looked to here Flora was standing and saw that she was gone without her noticing. Miranda just stared in disbelief as Alexander said, "Speaking of rest, Miranda, would show the Team The Baffling Bravo Brothers where they will be resting their heads?"

"It's just 'The Baffling Bravo Brothers'," Daniel corrected.

"That's not what is going to show up on your badges," the Alakazam said with a smirk.

Daniel, in a state of disbelief, turned on his badge to open up the holographic screen. Sure enough, he greeted with the message "Welcome DANIEL BRAVO of Team THE BAFFLING BRAVO BROTHERS". Daniel just stared blankly at the message and said, "Well, that's just poor design," then turned off the badge.

"In any case," Miranda said, "Please come with me to where our guild members sleep."

. . .

Miranda led Team The Baffling Bravo Brothers a part of the Maple Guild where there were numerous small, orange tents scattered around the land. There were many Pokémon outside the tents who seemed to be either sparring, training, or talking to each other. "These are the tents where the guild member come to rest. Each team have their own tent and you can do whatever you like to it, as long you don't, you know, destroy it." Miranda led the brothers to tent with large "17" on the side. "And this tent is yours!"

"What's the '17' for?" Mathew asked.

"You're our seventeenth team!" Miranda said as if it was obvious, "It makes it easier to track for us. Oh, and I IMPLORE you to make friends with the other teams, especially with your... ahem... unique position."

Daniel asked, "And by 'unique position' you mean-"

Miranda immediately wrapped her tail around the Brionne's mouth and said, "Yes, I do mean that! Just don't say out loud unless you want to attract a lot of attention."

"So, you tell us to make friends but then you tell us not to attract attention," Mathew said with a smirk.

"Alfo I fought you dint like liarf," Brionne mumbled through the Serperior's tail.

"I… well… you see… I-I just want keep you two safe," Miranda said as she unwrapped Brionne. "Now, please rest up, tomorrow is your first real mission." Miranda slithered away from the brothers.

The brothers opened their new tent. The tent itself is roughly the size of a small bedroom and inside were two stacks of hay that are meant to be their beds. There were windows on two sides of the tent. That's it. The brother's, however, were too tired to think about how little they have as they threw themselves on a haystack and slept in for the rest of the day.


	4. Come In, Hotsuff

It is summer vacation, and the Bravo family have decided to spend the day at a local pool. The pool was extremely large, capable of holding several dozen people. It had a big water slide and diving boards. The family, right now, were having a diving contest to see who could hold their breathe the longest. Mathew lost first, and, after another minute his father rose, himself. "How long did you last for, Mathew?"

"Like, twenty seconds," his son responded disappointingly.

"Don't feel to bad about it, son." Johnson looked down into the water. Daniel and his wife, Elizabeth, were still down there. "It always did come down to those two. How did Daniel learn to hold his breath for that long?"

"Might be hereditary, Mom WAS a professional swimmer, after all," explained Mathew.

"Mathew, I don't think you can inherit something like that."

"Actually, you can," Mathew countered, "Though, it can't really beat actual training and effort, someone with a more favorable genetic makeup could beat out someone who doesn't, assuming both are equally trained."

Johnson was quite baffled by his son's explanation, "How do you know that?"

Daniel heard his father ask the question after he emerged and answered, "He just does. Mathew tends to just know things for no real reason."

Mathew decided to take a jab on his brother, "It's because I _study_!"

"What class are you taking that requires you to know why the amber alert is called the 'amber alert'? Also, I lost. Mom beats me, once again."

As if on cue, Elizabeth emerged from the water. "I win again! And that concludes the annual Bravo breath holding competition." Everyone clapped at the event's end.

. . .

Daniel awakened to being slapped on the fucking face. "OW! FUCK!" Daniel cried in pain.

"Oh hey, you're up," said the Monferno looming over him.

Daniel slowly got up from his haystack bed, "There are better ways than using Wake-Up Slap."

"I… what?"

"Wake-Up Slap?" Daniel saw the confusion on his brother's face. "You know… the move you used to wake me up."

After finally figuring out, Mathew laughed at his brother, "Are you saying I need to learn a move to bitch slap my own brother?"

Trying and failing to find a rebuttal, Daniel just changed the subject, "We need to, uh, work on our new job."

"Right, right, of course," replied Mathew, who was nearly done laughing.

Daniel grabbed the bag as they started leave. Just before they left their tent, Daniel quickly turned to his brother and said, "Just remember that I can, and will, Water Gun your face whenever I want."

"Gotcha," Mathew replied with a thumbs up as they both left the tent.

 _The Baffling Bravo Brothers_

 _Chapter 4: Come In, Hotstuff_

Team The Baffling Bravo Brothers walked around the Maple Guild. They both agreed to explore the area so that they, in Daniel's words, "know what the fuck is here". First, they found the gym.

"Gym?" Daniel asked in confusion.

"Pokémon gym?" Mathew said with the same confusion.

"Gym leader? Gym Badges? Pokémon League?" has stopped working due to the conflicting ideas of Pokémon Trainer concepts in a Pokémon-only world.

"No, it's an actual gym," Mathew said as he finally had the idea to peek his head into the tent. Daniel, upon hearing, also peeked his head and saw that it was a legit gym. There were treadmills, dumbbells, punching bags, even a pool. "Haven't there ever been a place like this in the games?"

"If there have, I've never seen it. This is honestly so bizarre to me."

"How so?"

"Well… it's kinda like… take Bayonetta and then find out that she's so fast because she runs on the treadmill. You thought she became like that through, you know, five-hundred or so years of experience. But no, she has a goddamn Planet Fitness membership."

Mathew thought about the analogy for a bit, then his mind drifted off to another kind of analogy. He smiled and turned to his brother to say, "One hundred push-ups, one hundred sit-ups…"

Daniel, know where his brother is getting at, returned the smile and said, "…one hundred squats, ten-kilometer run…"

They both finished the sentence together, "Every! Single! Day!"

The brothers high-fived each other as Daniel exclaimed, "Hell yeah! Alright, let's go on to the next place."

. . .

Next, they found the library.

"That looks like a library," Mathew said.

"Cool," Daniel responded.

They didn't really care about the library.

. . .

Finally, they-

"FOOD!"

…found the mess hall, as Daniel's exclamation would lead you to believe.

"Bro, we are going in. I'm hungry as shiiiiiit," Daniel said.

"Yeah, I'm starving as well," Mathew agreed.

They both went into the mess hall. The mess hall tent itself was as large as a high school cafeteria, and inside there were tables scattered about with buffet-like areas for food. Although the only food there was to have were berries and apples. "I guess Pokémon are vegetarians?" Mathew questioned.

Daniel gave a kind-of gesture. "Maybe in this universe, but I definitely know that some kind of Pokémon food chain exists in canon. I definitely know that the original one-fifty played it completely with having Pokémon like Pidg-"

"You know, I think this subject is tantamount to cannibalism so lets drop it," Mathew said in a haste.

After dropping the subject, the brothers went around to see what they can get. Although there were a wide variety of things they can eat, they didn't really want to delve deep into the exotic looking berries of the Pokémon universe, so they just settled for apples. They found a table to sit at and ate their food.

"So, what's the plan for today?" Mathew asked.

"Well, Miranda said that our first real mission starts today, so, after we're done here, we should go find her-"

"Ah, I thought I would find you two here!" a familiar voice called out.

"Or, she could find us first because it's more convenient that way."

Miranda slithered her way to the table the brothers sat at and coiled herself next to them, "So, I assume you two gave yourself a tour of this place?" The brothers nodded. "Perfect! In that case, all that's left is to give you your first mission."

Even though he already has a good idea on what the answer was, Mathew decided to ask, "How will this mission differ from yesterday's mission?"

"Well, yesterday's mission's purpose was to see if you two could handle yourselves in a mystery dungeon. And, considering yesterday's events, you two more than proved that."

"Yeah, we better have," Daniel mouthed to himself.

Miranda continued, "Today's mission is virtually the same thing, except now you have a client, and you will be paid if successful."

"Okay, when do we meet the client?"

"We don't actually get the mission from the client," Daniel said, much to Miranda's surprise, "The missions we can do are posted on a bulletin board and then we turn them in around the end of the day." Daniel felt a slight piercing gaze on him. He turned to Miranda, who was exerting such a gaze, and realized that he probably said too much for someone who existed in this world for only two days. "We, uh, have a similar system back in our world, so I just kind of assumed it was the same," Daniel said, giving a half-truth.

Miranda, not exactly satisfied but still accepting of Daniel's cover up, sighed said, "That's usually right, but, for this first mission, I will be picking one out for you. So, once you two are done here, we will be heading off."

While they continued their meal, Mathew whispered to Daniel, "What the hell was that?"

"That was me not really wanting to explain that I got my knowledge from playing video games."

Mathew thought about it and understood why that would cause problems. "… Okay, understandable. In that case, you _really_ need to watch what you say. You're a bad liar, and she knows it."

Daniel sighed. "Thanks for reminding me."

. . .

After eating, Team The Baffling Bravo Brothers, along with Miranda made their way to the bounty board, a large bulletin board filled with different pieces of papers showcasing a variety of different jobs, ranging from retrieval to rescue. The location of this board was at the center of the Maple Guild, where most of the Pokémon seem to commerce. _We somehow managed to miss this part of the guild,_ Mathew thought.

"So, we're here," Daniel said, "What kind of mission will you have us do?"

"You'll be doing a very low rank mission, usually a search and retrieval kind of mission. Like this one," Miranda said as she pulled out one of the missions from the board and gave it to Daniel.

Daniel read the mission out loud, "'Please find my mother's necklace, it's really precious to me! I lost it somewhere in a mystery dungeon called The Glittering Swamp. The necklace has a silver band with a purple jewel attached to it. Sorry for the trouble! – Dori' Sounds fairly straight forward."

"Check the back," Miranda advised.

"The back?" Daniel turned around the paper to see word "Current Conditions" the back. It said things like dungeon difficulty, encounterable Pokémon, and the possible weather. Most notable was the warning that said "Criminal Machoke known to be in area: approach with caution". "What's this?" Daniel asked.

"My job," Miranda said, "It is my job to give the guild members as much information of a job as possible. It includes things like weather, danger level, encounterable Pokémon, and even criminals that may be in that dungeon. I take pride in it, so I make sure that all the information is one hundred percent accurate one hundred percent of the time."

"Except for that time you-" Daniel started before he was immediately had his mouth covered by his own brother.

But it was too late, for Miranda already looked depressed, "Y-y'know, maybe that mission isn't for you. There's perhaps a slightly easier for you-"

"No, no. This mission is perfect for us. We trust your information," Mathew said with a wide smile.

"A-Are you sure?" Miranda asked, silently. Mathew nodded and subtly stomps his brother's tail. Daniel, getting the very painful message, smiles and nods as well. "O-Okay the, be safe!" Miranda said, forcing a smile and reluctantly slithers away.

Mathew, now annoyed, turned to his brothers and said, "You see what you do? Now we HAVE to do this mission because your dumbass made her sad, and because of that she's now doubting her own ability to do her job and that's going to make her worse at her job and people will start getting misinformation which will make more depressed and then she'll get even worse at her job and then she'll-"

"Calm down, geez," Daniel said, "Although I understand what you mean, all we have to do is finish the job."

Mathew gave off a slightly shocked expression, "It disturbs me how chill you are about this."

"It disturbs me how freaked out you are about this."

"How can I NOT be!?" Mathew took the mission from his brother and aggressively pointed at the warning label. "Do you see this!? 'Criminal Machoke'! Our first mission and we have to take out a criminal!?"

"Nooooo… our first mission is to find a necklace. Realistically, we can ignore the Machoke. If you'd stop freaking out over every little thing that doesn't go our way, you'd have realized that."

"I…"

"Remember what we said? That we'll get back home together? I know how much of a goddamn nervous wreck you can be, but I really need to hold yourself together because, without you, I lose the only person in this world – and I mean that quite literally – that can keep me from doing something stupid. Like reminding someone of a big mistake that may or may not have cost us or lives."

Mathew, hearing his brother's pleas, calmed down and said, "Or setting your socks on fire while wearing them."

"ONE TIME!" The Brionne shouted, "ONE TIME THAT HAPPENED!"

. . .

The Glittering Swamp was a swamp the glitters. It was not unlike a forest where there were plenty of trees all over the place, and they would block a great amount of sunlight from the ground. However, the sunlight that would shine though the leaves would create a glitter effect when it met the water that floods the forest.

The water level was high. High enough to submerge the Monferno's lower body, making it extremely difficult for him to move. Not only that, but he would feel a stinging sensation on his legs, the pain making it that much more difficult to move or even think. Eventually, Mathew decided to climb onto one of the giant roots come from a tree in order to escape the water. The stinging sensation was still there though. "Ugh, Daniel do you have any…" Mathew looked around but could not find his brother. "Daniel!?" The Monferno started to freak out over his missing brother when he saw some unnatural looking ripples in the water. Upon close inspection, he saw that the ripples were being made by a certain ballerina seal that was swimming underwater. Annoyed, Mathew beckoned for his brother to emerge from the water, which he did.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Daniel said, dripping with swamp water.

"I know you're in your element and all, but maybe not show off when I'm in pain?" Mathew said in an annoyed tone.

"You're in pain? From what?" Daniel asked, genuinely confused.

"What else, Mr. Pokémon Expert? The water!"

Daniel scratched his head. "To be honest, I didn't know that merely touching water would be harmful to a fire-type."

"'Merely touching'? Dude, like, half my body is submerged in water."

"Okay, that makes more sense."

"It's like a bunch of pins and needles are stabbing my legs. I don't think I defend myself if we run into the Machoke. Any Ideas?" Daniel thought of a solution to the problem but can only draw blanks. Mathew saw this, so he tried to think of a solution himself. Monferno looked around the area and saw that the trees were not too high and not too far apart from each other. Vine were also hanging from the trees. Seeing this, the association between Pokémon and the animals they are based on crossed his mind. "Hey," he called out to his brother, "Monfernos are based on monkeys, right?"

"Well," Mr. Pokémon Expert replied, "the name is literally 'monkey' and 'inferno' put together, so obviously they're based on the rare Komodo Dragon."

"Cute," Mathew said to his brother's attempt at sarcasm. After regaining the feeling in his legs, Mathew got up and said, "I have an idea." He backed up a bit and performed a running jump towards a nearby tree. He was able to successfully grip the tree and climb it to the top. Upon reaching the top he made another running jump on one of tree branches and landed on a tree brunch of another tree. Daniel, seeing the whole ordeal, gave applause to his acrobatic brother. "So?" Mathew asked. "What did you think of that?"

"Seven-point-eight out of ten, too much mad hops," Daniel responded.

"Uh-huh. Well, this how I'll be moving through the swamp. I'll follow you since I can pay attention to your ripples better than you can follow my jumping."

"Hold on, you should take your badge with you," Daniel said as he started shuffling through the Wonder Bag that is soaked in water.

"Ugh, dude. Everything better not me be soaked in there."

"Don't worry, the bag is waterproof, and so is the badge. Here, catch." Daniel tossed his brother's badge to Mathew and said, "I've been playing with the badge and its functions on our way here; put the badge on your ear."

Mathew did what his brother said. When he put the badge on his ear, the badge seemed to attach itself to it, and what seemed to be a holographic microphone appeared in front of his mouth. "Dude, what the hell is this?" Mathew asked his brother, who was completely submerged in water again.

"Testing, testing, one, two, three," Mathew heard Daniel's voice coming from the badge. "This is Slippyboi reaching Hotstuff. Come in, Hotstuff."

Mathew responded, "Call me 'Hotstuff' again, and I will personally Thunder Punch you so hard you'll wake up back in our world."

"You can do that!?" Daniel said in fake shock.

Mathew sighed. "Just start swimming, I'll be following."

. . .

Mathew was quite surprised by how fast his brother was underwater. Even he thought he was just going to be casually jump from tree to tree whilst following a moderately good swimmer, he found himself having to quickly make his jumps in order to catch up to his brother. "Dude," he said into the mic, "how are you so fast?"

Mathew couldn't see it, but Daniel gave a big, shit-eating grin. "What's wrong? Can't keep up?"

"I guess you could say I'm not exactly used to parkouring through a bunch of trees." Mathew suddenly had a question. "Hey, how are you talking underwater?"

"Same way I talk to you above water. Why?"

"Well, shouldn't all I be hearing is gargle noises?"

"Hey, Pokémon invented this thing, and they tend to be both primitive and advanced at the same tiHOLY SHIT!"

Mathew saw the moving ripples he was following stop. He started to panic, "Danny! Are you okay!?"

"Uh… yeah. Could you come down here for a sec?" Mathew saw his brother emerge, carrying something bright and yellow and placing it on a nearby root. Mathew jumped down from and unto the same root, surprising his brother when he landed. "OH FUCK!"

"Sorry bout that, but you had me worried." Mathew said as he took off his badge. "What'd you call me down here for?" Daniel pointed at the thing that he placed on the root. But it wasn't just a thing. It was a Pikachu. "A Pikachu?"

"Hey! You know a Pokémon!"

"Fuck off." Mathew looked at the Pikachu more closely. His right ear looked chewed off and he had an eyepatch on his left eye, which had a scar that ran diagonally through it. "He looks like he's been through a lot."

"Uh… 'she'." Daniel corrected.

Mathew gave Daniel a suspicious look, "Why do you know that?"

Daniel pointed the Pikachu's tail, "The tip of the tail is heart-shaped. Thus, female."

Now Mathew is confused, "But why, though?"

"Because Nintendo said so. I don't make the rules, I just know them." After saying that, Daniel decided to shake the Pikachu a little. "Heeeeey." Daniel shook her harder. "Wake up."

"Where did you find her?" Mathew asked.

"Underwater."

"Was she passed out when you found her?"

"Yeah."

"Wouldn't that mean she was drowning?"

"I guess so."

"Couldn't that also mean she's still drowning?"

Team The Baffling Bravo Brothers both looked at the Pikachu, laying on a tree root. She was not waking up. She was drowning. "OH SHIT!" The brothers said in unison.

"How do you save a Pokémon from drowning!?" Mathew asked Mr. Pokémon Expert.

"I don't know," said Mr. Pokémon Expert, "I've ever seen a Pokémon in danger of drowning."

"Then what!? We leave her to die!?"

"Uh… uh…" Lightbulb time. "CPR!"

"Will that work on a Pokémon?"

"We're about to find out! So… do you know CPR?"

"You're goddamn lucky I do."

"Well, do CPR shit!"

"O-Okay! Step one: check for breathing." Mathew placed his hand over the Pikachu's mouth. Nothing. "No breathing. Probably already dead."

"DON'T YOU FUCKING QUIT ON HER!" Daniel screamed.

"Okay! Step two." Mathew kept the Pikachu's mouth open to breathe two full breaths into her mouth. Still no reaction. "Okay. Step three: chest compressions." Mathew froze. Mathew placed his hands over the Pikachu's chest and started pressing down. "One… two… three… four… five…"

"Is it working?"

"Shut it. Six… seven… eight… nine… ten…" Suddenly the Pikachu started coughing up water. Team The Baffling Bravo Brothers gave out huge sighs of reliefs. The whole ordeal left them slightly exhausted.

"I've never been so invested in the life of someone I didn't know," Daniel said.

"Tends to happen when someone is dying right next to you," Mathew said in response.

The brothers looked at the Pikachu. Her senses seem to be slowly coming back to her. "Welp, you're her hero and you're the people person… so… you deal with this." Daniel started to leave but was immediately caught by his brother.

"You better not leave me alone with her, what if she's hostile."

"Then… we kick her ass."

"How can you that about someone you just saved?"

"It was a little hard, but we do need to defend oursel-"

"Turn around. Slowly." The brothers raised their hands and followed the orders coming from behind them. The Pikachu they just saved was in a stance that looked like she was ready to pounce at any moment. Electricity surged from her red cheeks as she glared at the two of them intensely. "Who are you two?" She asked aggressively.

After a brief silence, Daniel told his brother, "You do it."

"Why me?" Mathew asked.

"Would you really trust my amazing charisma in a situation like this?"

Mathew thought about it and decided to go with it. "We're… err… Team The Baffling Bravo Brothers."

"'Team'?" The Pikachu confirmed. "You two are a part of a guild?"

"Y-Yeah… Maple Guild."

Another brief silence occurred. "Badges," The Pikachu demanded. Daniel took off his badge from his ear and the brothers showed them to her. After confirming that they're real she relaxed her stance a bit. "Do whatever you have to do and stay out of my way." And with a flash of light and a gust of wind, she was gone.

"What the hell was that?" Mathew asked in shock.

Daniel shrugged. "An edgy Pikachu wants to keep her secrets? Fine by me. Lets just be done with this mission and go home."

"Are you sure this is something we can just ignore?"

"It is if we ignore it!" Daniel put his badge back onto his ear and dove back into the water. Mathew, rolling his eyes, put his badge onto his ear and climbed up the trees once more.

. . .

The brothers were now deep into the mystery dungeon. The tree became much more plentiful, which in turn caused the shininess of the Glittering Swamp to dissipate, as well as making it darker. Still, the brothers continued onwards into the swamp until Mathew suddenly gave urgent whisper, "Stop going forward, Danny!"

Daniel stopped swimming on command. "Why?"

"Don't emerge until you find a tree to hide behind."

Daniel emerged when he swam his way next to a large tree. He looked around saw nothing out of place except for his brother on top of the tree. "What's going on?" He asked.

"I see the Machoke." Daniel looked behind the tree and, sure enough, there was the big, purple sack of muscle at a distance, his backed turned to the brothers as he himself have difficulty moving through the water. "So, what's the plan? You said we can ignore the Machoke if we really didn't want to deal with him, right?"

"Yeah… well… I think you might want to take closer look at the Machoke."

Mathew, hearing this, squinted his eyes a little to see purple glint around the Machoke's neck. "Don't tell me that's…"

"The necklace we came here for around the neck of the one Pokémon we are attempting to avoid? Yeah, it be like that sometimes."

Mathew gave annoyed grunt, "So… what's your plan for beating him?"

"We take advantage of his poor speed. Circle around him and whittle him down with weaker attacks. We also have the element of surprise on our side, so we make as much use of that as we can. And, like with the Steelix, focus on long-range attacks; don't get too close if it's not necessary." Daniel paused waiting for a response from his brother. "Well, did you get that?"

"I did, I just find it weird that you can come up with an effective strategy like that but not get at least a two-point-oh in college."

"There is a stark difference between fighting a Machoke and writing a thousand-five-hundred-word essay on a video I couldn't care less for. Now, let's move."

Daniel swam silently as to not cause the water to splash nor to let the ripple effects grow noticeable. Mathew hopped from tree to tree. His method of travel did make some noise, but it didn't matter as long as he was high enough so that the sound won't travel as far. By moving as quietly and quickly as possible, they were able to get in a position for a sneak attack at long range.

"Are you in position?" Daniel asked.

"I'm ready," Mathew responded.

"One more thing: remember that our target is the necklace. If you see an opportunity to jump down and snag it, take it. Afterwards, we can cut our losses and go. Understand?"

"Got it."

"Then, on three, you'll hit him with a Flamethrower. One… two… three!"

As instructed, Mathew shot the stream of flames from his mouth while his brother used Water Gun alongside him, both directly hitting the Machoke's back. The Machoke growled in pain, saying, "What now!?" He turned around to face his assailants but could find no one. Daniel was already submerged in water once again and was swimming to the other side of the Machoke while Mathew hoped over to another tree before the Machoke could spot him. "Come out! I know I didn't imagine that!" yelled the Machoke who was fiercely looking for his attackers.

"Hey, what are the chances of him completely forgetting that he was attacked if we just stay hidden for a little bit?" asked Daniel.

"I'd like to think he won't just go, 'Must have been nothing'," Mathew replied. "Just hit him with another attack."

Another stream of fire and water pelted the Machoke, causing him to get angrier. "Fucking cowards! Come face me and I promise I won't just kill your asses!"

A funny thought came to Daniel's head. "Sorry bro, but I gotta do it to him."

"You better not do something stupid," Mathew warned.

But it was too late, Daniel's mind was already set on doing the stupid thing. He emerged from the water and called out, "Hey meathead!" to the Machoke. When the meathead turned to face him, Daniel winked and flipped the Machoke the double bird before re-submerging into the water.

"I don't even know what that means and it still pisses me off!" yelled the Machoke as he started chasing the ripples in the water, though he much too slow to actually catch up to the rude Brionne.

 _Goddammit, Danny,_ Mathew thought to himself as he shot another Flamethrower at the meathead.

"Did you like that, Mathew?" asked the Brionne who was casually swimming for his life.

"You're a goddamn idiot, Danny."

"Well, now he's beyond pissed off, so it should be much easier for you find an opportunity toOHSHIT!"

A slight miscalculation on Daniel's part happened. See, Daniel was only mostly correct when assuming the Machoke was exclusively a close-range, physical fighter. But he forgot that there were plenty on long-range, physical attacks that a Machoke could use. He soon remembered that after the meathead somehow found and tossed a whole bunch of rocks at him. One of the rocks hit him directly while the rest weere surrounding him. Pretty soon, Daniel found himself in a prison of rocks.

"Danny!" Mathew called out as he started to quickly move to his aid.

"Heheh, I gotcha ya Arceusdamned punk," Machoke said as he started to move closer to the stone prison he created. "I hope you wished for a very painful death, cause when I'm done with ya, yer heart's gonna be where yer ass is."

"Stay away from him!" Machoke turned to direction the voice came from to see a very angry Monferno falling towards him.

Mathew landed on the Machoke to hit him with a heavy Fire Punch square on the face. However, though it did do some damage, the Machoke did not flinch. He grabbed the Monferno by the neck and held him high.

"So, yer the other punk." Mathew tried to pry the Machoke's firm grip open, but to no avail. Machoke readied his fist, which started shining a very bright orange. A devilish grin emerged on his face. "Don't worry, you'll meet up with yer friend soon enough."

Suddenly, a flash of yellow struck the meathead's arm, releasing his grip on Mathew. Mathew fell into the water, once again feeling that same pins and needles sensation. Mathew, through all the pain found his way to another large root to climb on. He looked behind him in order to figure out what caused the Machoke to release him. To his surprise, it was the beaten Pikachu from earlier, standing on a fallen tree.

"You again!?" the Machoke exclaimed in annoyed surprise. "I thought I put yer ass in the water!"

"It will take more than that to kill me," reasoned the Pikachu.

 _Bitch, we saved your ass,_ Mathew thought to himself as the pain he felt before started to dissipate enough for him to jump onto a tree and climb it.

The Pikachu and the Machoke continued to glare at each other. Electricity cackled from her red cheek pockets as the Machoke tensed his muscles. The Pikachu made the first move with a Thunderbolt, striking the Machoke's entire body. He did not flinch, however, and used Rock Tomb in retaliation. The Pikache's tail glowed white and, reaction, struck the rocks that were going to hit her with Iron Tail, cutting each one in half. Then, her entire body glowed white while her right hand started cackling electricity. With a flash of yellow, the Pikachu jumped at the Machoke in high speed before striking him with a powerful Thunder Punch. After all the damage he took beforehand, this blow was finally enough to cause him to lose his balance fall on his back.

He was not done, however. He very quickly got up on his knees and said, "Fucking bitch! I'll kill you for real this ti-" Suddenly, much to his and the Pikachu's surprise, a Monferno dropped directly on his back.

While they had their battle, Mathew was waiting for his opportunity to jump onto his back and take the necklace, and he finally found it. While on his back, Mathew managed to grab the necklace from around the Machoke's neck and strike him with a Fire Punch for good measure before jumping back onto a tree. The punch caused the Machoke to slam his face into the water. Seeing the opportunity, the Pickachu, right hand cackling with electricity once again, jumped high into the air then fell straight onto the Machoke's back, striking him with the Thunder Punch. This attack was enough to finally knock him out.

The Pikachu, on top of the defeated meathead, placed a device on his device. She then looked around for the Monferno that assisted her. She found him on top of a prison of rocks, tearing it apart rock by rock.

Mathew, finally seeing his brother's head, said, "Danny! Are you okay!?"

Daniel, who had a pretty big headache after being pelted in the head by a goddamn rock, said, "Is this what it feels like to hear me talk?"

Mathew gave huge a sigh of relief and said, "Probably," as he continued removing rocks to free the Brionne.

"Of all the moves to forget about, it had to be the one that pelted me right in the forehead and trapped me," Daniel mumbled to himself, wriggling out of his prison. "So, what happened while I was out?"

"That Pikachu we saved helped us out." The brothers turned to face the Pikachu.

She glared at the brothers and said, "Next time, don't go after my target," before disappearing in another flash of yellow.

Team The Baffling Bravo Brothers looked at each other. The Brionne shrugged and said, "Like I said, edgy Pikachu wants to keep her secrets."

. . .

The brothers returned to the guild after completing their mission. They were met by a Miranda and a Nidorina at the Bulletin Board. "Thank you thank you thank you!" The Nidorina said extatically when the brothers handed her the necklace. "Thank you so much, here take this!" She shoved some money and a red seed into Mathew's arm. "I have to go now. Thanks again!" The Nidorina sprinted off.

"Well, she's excitable," Mathew said as he examined the seed closely, "She gave us a seed."

"Yeah, I just…" Daniel remembered Miranda was here and chose his words a bit more carefully, "… don't know why." Daniel hoped Miranda will come in and explain for him because he doesn't exactly know how to distinguish different seeds.

"It's a blast seed." Miranda explained. "They explode when you throw them hard enough." The idea of having an actual bomb filled Daniel with glee. "Oh! That's right!" Miranda continued. "If you want to keep being successful in your career as an explorer, you'll have to learn about the different seeds. They can be distinguished by their natural color, so it shouldn't be too much trouble. I recommend you look it up at the library."

Taking her advice to consideration, the brothers notice that Miranda was giving them a very anticipating look. "A-Anything else?" Mathew asked.

Miranda, realizing what she's been doing, gave an embarrassed chuckle and said, "I just thought you'd, you know, tell me how your mission went. Was there any trouble?"

Daniel opened his mouth to answer. "We found help to beat the Machoke, so there wasn't too much trouble on us on the mission," Mathew said before his brother could answer.

"Oh, really? Well things like that tend to happen. Sometimes two parties will have a quest that leads them to the same dungeon. It's usually good thing if they decide to team up to complete each other's missions. Interesting that it happened on your first mission, though." The Serperior gave a sudden gasp. "Perhaps the web of fate hast bound you together."

Daniel suddenly shouted, "THIS WAS ALL PART OF GAWD'Z PLAN!"

Nearby Pokémon turned their heads while Mathew lowered his. "Could you not entice my brother to suddenly become dramatic," he pleaded to Miranda

"Aw," Miranda sighed. "But being dramatic is so much fun!"

"See!?" Daniel told his brother while gesturing towards the Serperior. "She gets it!"

Mathew rolled his eyes while grabbing his brother's shoulder. "We're going back to our tent." Mathew forcefully ended the conversation by dragging his brother away from it.

"Ow!" Daniel welped in pain. "Hey, easy on the shoulders."

"You weren't easy on my ears."

"… Fair enough."


End file.
